FISHERMEN'S OWN BOOK 107 



diminutive sprays of coral attached to some of the hooks. You will observe 

 four or five varieties, but I have never yet been fortunate enough to haul up 

 any of the kind valuable in commerce. 



Here's a queer looking object coming — a fish skeleton. It is a codfish 

 with nothing but the skin and bones left. He has been eaten since he got 

 on that hook, as clean as a whistle, not a grain of flesh left if you'd give a 

 guinea for it. Little insects that we call sand-fleas have accomplished this. 

 There must be myriads of them, because in a couple of hours they will 

 reduce a large codfish to the state in which we find this one, or, speaking 

 mathematically, to his simplest terms. The fish, poor fellow, must feel very 

 much like Gulliver when attacked by the Lilliputian army. They're too 

 many for him. 



Thus we go on to the end of the trawl, where we "break out" the anchor 

 and haul it up, together with the buoy-line and buoy, rowing to the vessel 

 and pitching our fish on deck. These we "dress down," and as the aggre- 

 gate catch is not large, we heave up the anchor and shift a few miles away 

 where we "bring to" again, bait up the trawls, and then are done for the 

 night, "till daylight doth appear." This time we get better fishing, and all 

 the dories get a load. 



Sometimes an uncommon incident takes place. Such an one happened to 

 the writer a short time since. We were in our dory, hauling away in the 

 most unsuspecting manner, when a whale, without the slightest previous 

 notice, came right up under the dory, gave a snort which startled us as 

 though it had been an earthquake, and in a moment we were sliding off the 

 back of the monster, half capsized. Luckily we both managed to grab the 

 upper gunwale, and saved her from going wholly over, coming off with no 

 worse damage than being swamped with water and losing half our fish. 



On foggy days a horn is blown at frequent intervals during the time the 

 dories are hauling trawls, to enable them to judge of the whereabouts of the 

 vessel. But withal, dories frequently lose themselves and row about for 

 many hours without finding their vessels, and in such cases they are often 

 picked up by passing vessels, after enduring great privations. Many a 

 thrilling story might be told of narrow escapes from perils such as these, by 

 our fishermen who follow up Bank fishing continuously. 



When the bait gets exhausted, or becomes too stale for the fish to relish 

 it, we proceed to Newfoundland to procure another supply. On such occa- 

 sions we sometimes have many leisure days, and to beguile time we arrange 

 a dance on shore, which is kept up from dark till daylight. 



